System and methods for transmitting clinical data from one or more sending applications to a dictation system

1. A method of transferring clinical data generated at a data source to a dictation system for use by the dictation system, comprising: receiving the clinical data from a sending application associated with the data source that generates the clinical data, wherein receiving the clinical data from the sending application includes receiving Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data from the sending application associated with the data source that generates the DICOM data; parsing the clinical data received from the sending application to retrieve a value from the clinical data that matches a corresponding field in a formatting template; normalizing the value that matches the corresponding field in the formatting template by formatting the value based on a format setting configured in the formatting template; if the normalized value that matches the corresponding field falls outside a desired value range specified in the formatting template, formatting the normalized value by adding an indicator marking that the normalized value is out of bounds of the desired value range; and sending the normalized value to the dictation system for use by the dictation system; and generating, by the dictation system, a report, wherein the report includes the normalized value and the indicator.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising: mapping the normalized value to a corresponding field in a report template for the report in the dictation system for use by the dictation system in auto-populating the corresponding field in the report template with the normalized value when generating the report.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the mapping of each of the normalized value to the corresponding field in the report template includes sending the normalized value to the dictation system together with an identifier of a location in the report template where the normalized value is to be entered in the report template when the dictation system generates the report.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the formatting the value based on the format setting includes converting the value from a first unit of measurement to a second unit of measurement.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the formatting the value based on the format setting includes converting a character in the value from a first case to a second case.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the formatting the value includes rounding off the value to a number of decimal places as set forth in the formatting template.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the clinical data is Health Level-7 (HL7) clinical data, the method further comprising determining if the clinical data received is to be processed using the formatting template by determining if a metadata value of the HL7 clinical data matches a criterion set forth in the formatting template.

8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the determining if the metadata value of the HL7 clinical data matches the criterion set forth in the formatting template includes determining if a description of the HL7 clinical data set forth in the HL7 clinical data matches a description of the clinical data that is associated with the formatting template.

9. The method of claim 8 , further comprising: upon determining if the metadata value of the clinical data matches the criterion set forth in the formatting template, performing the parsing of the clinical data.

10. A method of normalizing content from a sending application for use by a dictation system in generating a report, comprising: receiving Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) content from the sending application that generates the DICOM content; parsing the DICOM content received from the sending application to retrieve a value that matches a field in a formatting template, the formatting template containing a mapping of the value to a corresponding field in a report template of the dictation system; formatting the value based on format settings configured in the formatting template for the value to normalize the value that matches the field in the formatting template; setting a range of values for the field in the formatting template; determining if the normalized value matches the field in the formatting template associated with the range of values; if the normalized value matches the field associated with the range of values, determining if the normalized value falls outside the range of values and upon positive determination, formatting the normalized value by adding an indicator marking that the normalized value falls outside the range of values; and transmitting the normalized value to the dictation system, wherein the dictation system generates the report, wherein the report includes the normalized value and the indicator.

11. The method of claim 10 , wherein the formatting the value by adding the indicator includes changing a format of the value from a first format to a second format.

12. The method of claim 10 , wherein the formatting the value by adding the indicator includes adding a character to the value.

13. The method of claim 10 , wherein the formatting the value includes replacing the value with a second value as set forth in the formatting template.

14. The method of claim 10 , wherein the formatting the value includes extracting a portion of the value to generate a substring of the value for transmitting to the dictation system.

15. The method of claim 10 , further comprising determining if the DICOM content received is to be processed using the formatting template by determining if a metadata value of the DICOM content matches a criterion associated with the formatting template.

16. A system for generating reports using Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) data, comprising: a sending application that generates DICOM data; a computing device having a non-transitory computer readable storage medium having instructions to: receive the DICOM data from the sending application; parse the DICOM data received from the sending application to retrieve a value from the DICOM data that matches a field in a formatting template; normalize the value that matches the field in the formatting template by formatting the value based on format settings configured in the formatting template; add a range of values for the field in the formatting template; determine if the normalized value normalized from the DICOM data that matches the field having the range of values falls outside the range of values; upon positive determination, format the normalized value to include an indicator that indicates that the normalized value falls outside the range of values; and a dictation system communicatively connected to the computing device and receives the normalized value and generates the report using the normalized value, wherein the report includes the normalized value and the indicator; wherein the computing device includes one or more instructions to map the normalized value to a field in a report template in the dictation system by associating the normalized value to the field in the report template.

17. The system of claim 16 , wherein the dictation system generates the report using the normalized value by automatically populating the field in the report template with the normalized value.

18. The system of claim 16 , wherein the computing device further includes one or more second instructions to format the value by replacing the value with a second value as set forth in the formatting template.

19. The system of claim 16 , wherein the computing device further includes one or more second instructions to format the value by extracting a portion of the value to generate a sub string for sending to the dictation system.